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Note: The following post is a quote:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1823727/posts

17-year-old Dallastown student...(Jr. Marine Foiled Kidnap/Rape)
The York Dispatch ^ | April 25, 2007 | Brock Parker

Posted on 04/25/2007 10:51:00 PM PDT by beaversmom

Seventeen-year-old Travis VanKuren was walking to his car at the Wal-Mart in Springettsbury Township at 7 p.m. last Wednesday when he saw a man and a woman struggling in the parking lot.

VanKuren, a slim, 5-foot, 9-inch junior at Dallastown Area High School, took a closer look and made eye contact with the woman involved in the fight.

“She looked over at me and started screaming for help,” VanKuren said. The woman also screamed “help” at two other people in the parking lot who looked at her and walked away.

VanKuren didn’t.

Instead, he decided to help, and police say what the 17-year-old did next saved a 42-year-old Manchester Township woman from a man who was impersonating a police officer and intended to kidnap and rape her.

The alleged attacker, whom police later identified as Joseph Simon Holt, 20, of York, was trying to put handcuffs on the wrists of the woman who was screaming for help in the parking lot of the Wal-Mart at 2801 E. Market St., VanKuren said.

She struggled to get away and held onto a shopping cart with both hands to keep Holt from taking her away, VanKuren said.

Assailant let her go: VanKuren said he can’t remember if he ran or walked over to the woman, but as soon as Holt realized the teenager had come to the woman’s aid, he let her go and grabbed her car keys, VanKuren said.

Holt appeared to be trying to get into the woman’s SUV and drive away, so VanKuren said he approached Holt again, and Holt walked around the SUV.

“I asked him: ‘Sir, give me the lady’s keys back,’” VanKuren said. “My heart was pounding a bit. I was scared because I didn’t know what he’d do. But he looked just as scared as I was.”

Holt dropped the keys on the hood of the SUV and began to walk away. VanKuren said he stayed with the woman, who was calling police on her cell phone.

“We watched him as he walked away,” VanKuren said of Holt. “He kept looking back.”

Springettsbury Township Police responded and quickly located Holt near the Giant Food Store on the 2400 Block of East Market Street.

Holt, police said, admitted his plans to kidnap and rape the woman, and he was charged with attempted rape, attempted involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, attempted kidnapping, impersonating a public servant and several other charges. Last July Holt was convicted of attempted rape in Lancaster County.

Springettsbury Township Police Chief David Eshbach said the teenager’s intervention “saved this woman a very bad outcome.”

Proud of reaction: With an almost bashful smile, VanKuren said his reaction to the cry for help is “something I’m proud of.”

But the teen didn’t think what he did was too heroic.

“My car was maybe three spots away,” he said. “I wasn’t going to walk past her. It just seemed wrong.”

Word of VanKuren’s heroics is beginning to get out at his high school, however. Master Gunnery Sergeant Mark Jovich, VanKuren’s instructor at the high school’s Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, said VanKuren’s actions are being relayed to every JROTC class as an example of leadership.

“We’re very proud of him,” Jovich said. “He knows what is right or wrong, and he steps up. It would have been very easy to walk away, and a lot of people would have walked away. He was calm, cool, and collected. That is leadership. I think he handled it exactly how he should have handled it.”

VanKuren, a cadet lieutenant in the JROTC, said he wants to pursue a career in the military, either in the Marines or in the Navy, like his father.

He also runs track at the high school and has a part-time job.

After he came to the woman’s aid at the Wal-Mart last week, VanKuren said he went home and then to a friend’s house — where VanKuren had to deliver a set of hair clippers he had purchased at Wal-Mart that day. VanKuren said he was buying the hair clippers for his friend in preparation for the JROTC’s uniform day last Thursday.

“He wanted to know what took me so long,” VanKuren said.